


Madhouse/Asylum

by Yahtzee



Category: Sleepy Hollow (TV)
Genre: Bonding, Gen, Pre-Het, Romantic Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-21
Updated: 2013-09-21
Packaged: 2017-12-27 05:06:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/974669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yahtzee/pseuds/Yahtzee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ichabod Crane must build a whole new world. Where can he begin?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Madhouse/Asylum

Ichabod Crane has seen the 21st century, and he does not like it.

People are coarse of language. Their garments are garish and sloppy. The only horse he has seen in the brief time since his awakening was in the company of the Horseman; otherwise this is a world without such noble and companionable beasts. Candles without flame burn too steadily, and so brightly that he can scarcely tell night from day. These lights kill the shadows and mask the stars.

And this time contains no one he loves, no one he even knows, save for the woman in whose keeping he finds himself, who is even now taking him toward some unfathomable horror called a “Wal-Mart.”

Two days’ acquaintance: That is all they have. Ichabod keeps reminding himself of this, for it is difficult to remember now that she is his entire world. That is proof, mostly, of how small and strange his world has become. All the other connections and duties of his life fell at the stroke of the Horseman’s axe; now Ichabod’s only calling is to destroy the Horseman, and his only companion is Lieutenant Abigail Mills.

“Listen,” Abbie says, her fingers drumming against the steering wheel. “Sorry about the loony bin.”

“I beg your pardon?” Every fourth or fifth word out of her mouth is nonsense, and Ichabod has resigned himself to not understanding everything for quite some time to come. Where he can glean meaning from context, he does. The rest of the time, he is adrift and must endure.

Here, however, Abbie is apologizing for something that she apparently feels quite deeply about, but he has no idea what a “loony bin” might be. He does not remember seeing any loons. Therefore he is missing important information, and must ask.

Abbie catches herself – pressing her lips together, bowing her head slightly.  “’Loony bin’ is slang for a mental institution. An insane asylum.”

Ichabod figures it out. “Loony, from lunacy.”

“Guess so. Never thought about it before.” She smiles a little, though she keeps her eyes on the scene before them.

They are together in her bizarre horseless carriage, which runs on some principle that she says is not sorcery. (And it must be true, for if Abigail Mills were a witch, she would surely have a greater understanding of the dark work of the supernatural.

Like Katrina had understood it. As she still understands it, perhaps. He cannot yet fully comprehend the dream he was given, so he does not know if his wife should be counted among the living or the dead. All he is sure of is that Katrina is not with him, and will not be.)

Ichabod can see the comfort of this horseless conveyance – the roads are smooth, and he likes the ability to control the weather within, summoning warm or cool breezes as desired. But the speed at which they move along dizzies him. Do these people even see the world around them? If they do not meet their neighbors walking to and fro, then how do they get to know one another? Church, perhaps. Yet he cannot bring himself to think of the “car” as a good thing, not yet.

The Horseman’s head is in a jar on the floor, between Ichabod’s feet.

“I realize it must have been scary for you, being stuck in a place like that,” Abbie continues.

“Indeed not. Though I was at first unnerved, the establishment proved to be far and away more hospitable than any other madhouse of which I have ever heard.”

Abbie glances sideways at him. “Hospitable?”

“My room was – ” _Very clean_ , Ichabod wishes to say, but many things here are cleaner than he is used to. (The very air smells strange: sweeter, but oddly artificial. People smell artificial as well, as though they’ve removed any scent that could remind them that they possess bodies, that they are mortal.) He keeps to more pertinent details. “—mine alone, and there was a most comfortable bed, and I was neither chained nor whipped nor beaten.”

“Whoa, whoa. Back up,” Abbie says. Ichabod looks behind them, wondering if she will make the “car” move backwards again. He doesn’t like it when that happens. Instead she says, “You thought people were going to _beat_ you?”

“The mad are difficult to control. Asylums use harsh methods.”   

“Like beatings?”

“And cold-water baths, to still the nerves. Purgatives to balance the humors, and bleeding where needed – ”

“Bleeding? They were still bleeding people in your day?”

“Is this no longer practiced?” No wonder this century is so unpleasant. People’s humors have become terribly unbalanced.

“Purgatives? Are those – laxatives?” Abbie wrinkles her nose. Ichabod doesn’t know this word either; realizing this, she adds, “A drug that makes you, um, defecate?”

“Those are they.” At least this time has not abandoned all sane medical practice.

“So you thought I had taken you to a place where they were going to torture you, basically, and you still just – you just _let me do it_?”

Abbie had not given him much choice in the matter – and yet that does not get to the truth. In the end, Ichabod knows, he remained willingly until the very end. “I thought perhaps I belonged in such a place. Surely the circumstances are extraordinary, and … I trusted your judgment.”

She turns to look at him then, her large eyes (such very lovely eyes) wide with disbelief. “That’s why you were fighting them at the end. You didn’t understand they were just going to give you a shot.”

Good heavens. “They intended to shoot me?”

“Not that kind of shot! I mean, an injection. With medicine. It wouldn’t have hurt you, just spaced you out … made you feel dazed for a while.” Abbie is more upset than he would have imagined. “Nobody was going to beat you, or whip you. Or bleed you. Any of that.”

“It is of no consequence any longer. You have seen to my release.”

“It _is_ of consequence.” She blinks, as if surprised by the very words she speaks. “What I’m trying to say is that I’d never do that to you. I’d never lock you up in a place where you’d be hurt.”

Those were her orders, were they not? Yet Abbie will defy orders when her reason or her heart so command. Ichabod has already seen this for himself. “I appreciate your assurances. But I believe I always knew you – you would never willingly be cruel.”

(It can be difficult to take a person’s measure. For instance, you can love a woman with all your heart, take her to wife, and yet never know she practices sorcery. That the most important part of her life – of her self – was something you were never even allowed to see. Ichabod realizes now that he knew very little of Katrina. Despite all this, he trusts his judgment about Abigail Mills.)

“I’m looking out for you, okay?” Her smile can be so guarded, sometimes. “Nobody is going to treat you like that here.”

_Okay_ is one of the new words he thinks he’s figuring out. But he’s not certain yet, so he simply nods.

Abbie turns their vehicle toward a vast sea of cars – hundreds of them, surely, though it is quite early in the morning. The sign emblazoned with the legend “Wal-Mart” is itself as large as any shop Ichabod has ever seen. “What manner of place is this?”

“It’s a store. A really big store, where you can get all the basics. Change of clothes, toiletries, some food. We have to get you set up.” When she turns the key and silences the car, Ichabod immediately feels easier. “You haven’t got much, and that’s a fact.”

He has one person. One partner in his quest to stop the Horseman. One friend.

It is enough, perhaps, to build a new world on. 


End file.
